JAP BASES POUNDED

Grey River Argus, 18 May 1944, Page 5

JAP BASES POUNDED

ON NEW GUINEA COAST Australians Nearing Hansa Bay (Special to N.Z. Press Assn). (Rec. 9.13.) SYDNEY, Ma v 17. ■ Wakde Island, which is the main target for Allied bombers in Dutch New Guinea, has been hit with 1,200 tons of explosives in the past nine days. The latest softening blow against this important Japanese air supply base was delivered last Monday. Extensive damage is believed to have been caused in personnel and supply areas. Wakde Island is 110 miles west of the American beachhead at Hollandia.

One highlight of Monday’s' Southwest Pacific air operations was a battle over Schouten Islands, in Gaelvink Bay. In this a small number of Kittyhawks destroyed five out of twenty Japanese interceptor ’planes. All the Kittyhawks returned to their base. Allied fighters over Western Dutch New Guinea are repeating tactics employed at Rabaul to whittle down the enemy air strength bv challenging Japanese fighters ovei’ their own bases. Allied ’olanes are operating from airfields within Dutch New Guinea. Combining with fighter sweeps. Liberator bombers continue to pound enemv aerodromes in this area. Tn attacks on Sunday night thev h't run wavs and sunoly dumps on Biak and Japan Islands. More supplies of trapped remnants of the Japanese 18th. Army were destroyed on Sunday and when Liberators. Mitchells. Beauforts. Bostons and Thunderbolts co-ooerated in a series of raids on aerodromes, bivouac and dumn areas in the We-wak-Hansa Bav sector. Airstrins and defences are being systematically destroyed.

Australian troops, advancing along the coast, are now within about fortv miles of Nubia. Hansa Bay. They have not so far encountered any opposition. Rabaul. which has been smashed in months of raids was. attacked bv four waves of Solomons-based ’planes on Snndav. Smoke rose ten thousand feet from blaming fuel dumps at Vunakanau airfield. Solomons-based I ,’berators were oyer Wolea’. in the Carolines on Monday. Thow were not onnosed by Japanese fighters.